The Middle East continues to be center stage in our world right now.  Two issues dominate most thinking—Bush’s road map to peace and the matter of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq.  Allow me to review both of these:

• First, the matter of Islam.  It is imperative that all of this be viewed within the context of terrorism and Islam.  For the radical factions of Islam—bin Laden, the Taliban, etc.—the choice of Muslims is simple:  Either follow the law of Allah in its entirety or follow the laws of man.  In this age of globalization, the forces that are undermining Islam are capitalism, individualism, promiscuity and decadence; and each is a threat to the law of Allah.  Al Qaeda and the Taliban, therefore,  see Islam under a double threat: not just a military attack from a hostile West (in Iraq, Palestine, Chechnya, etc.) but also from within, where western values spread by impious regimes (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc.) are undermining what it means to be a Muslim.  For the average Muslim today, Islam is merely a religion, a way of organizing one’s life in accordance with Allah’s will.  Does this will include jihad against the West, which the radicals insist is destroying Islam?  The radical Muslims insist that the West is far more destructive to Islam than any other force and they want the normal Muslim to embrace this idea.  The battle within Islam, to define its nature and its destiny, rages. 

The Economist (13 September 2003), pp. 3-5.

• Second is the position of Yasir Arafat and the road map to peace.  During his recent visit with Jordan’s King Abdullah, President Bush stated that Arafat “is a loser.  I’m not going to spend my political capital on losers, only winners.  I’m still in a war mode, and the war is terrorism.  If people don’t fight terrorism, I am not going to deal with them.”  But Bush’s road map to peace in the Middle East is in tatters.  A Palestinian prime minister intended to sideline Arafat resigned, leaving Arafat in control.  A cease-fire has been broken by suicide bombings, such as last Saturday’s attack in Haifa, and Israeli reprisals, such as Israel’s bombing of a terrorist camp near Damascus, Syria.  Every president since Truman has gotten involved in this struggle and Bush is now reluctantly drawn in.  Bush has been reluctant to pick up where Clinton left off, because, he believes, Arafat cannot be trusted.  Further, dealing with Arafat seems inconsistent in the war on terrorism.  Europeans, the UN and Arab diplomats believe that isolating Arafat is a fundamental mistake.  In their view, Arafat, with all of his flaws, is the only Palestinian leader with enough clout to strike a deal with Israel.  Now, since the US does not deal with him, it has little ability to influence him.  When Bush invited Mahmoud Abbas, the former prime minister, to the US, the visit enraged Arafat, prompting him to undercut Abbas in a series of events that led to his resignation.  Bush’s road map, a detailed “performance-based,” three-phase plan to form a Palestinian state by 2005, from all appearances, is dead.  The major question now is whether the US can actually engage Israel and the PLO without dealing with Arafat.  For the US, the only options are to engage Arafat and negotiate or accept that the road map is dead.  There seems to be no other option.  The Israeli government has publicly declared that Arafat must go, either by killing him or by sending him into exile.  But the US sees his forcible removal as something that would escalate violence and cause huge anger in the Arab world.  It seems that the US cannot ignore Arafat.  Israel says it cannot accept Arafat.  Peace and a meaningful solution now seem utterly impossible.  

Glenn Kessler, Washington Post (6 October 2003) and The Economist (20 September 2003), p. 43.

• Finally is the issue of WMD in Iraq.  David Kay, who heads the Iraq Survey Group, produced his interim report last week.  He stated that no ready-to-use weapons have been found.  Because Iraq is a big country with many depots and other locations, there is much left to inspect.  Kay’s report does list evidence of continuing research and development (though not production) in each weapon category.  It also describes activities and equipment that Iraq failed to declare to the UN and that were not discovered by the inspectors.  As Charles Duelfer has argued, “The apparent absence of existing weapons stocks, therefore, does not mean Hussein did not pose a WMD threat.  In fact, fragments of evidence in Kay’s report about ongoing biological weapons research suggest that Hussein may have had a quick ‘break-out’ capacity to threaten his neighbors and, indeed, the United States with biological agents (possibly including infectious agents).”  It is now crucial for the Iraq Survey Group to establish when all agents and weapons were eliminated and why Secretary of State Colin Powell presented to the Security Council a picture so far off the mark.  It is also crucial to demonstrate what facts about the Iraq WMD program the UN teams missed and how Hussein’s regime acted to thwart the efforts of the UN.  Kay makes mention of the Iraqi concealment and deception as one reason why he has found so little.  Kay will need to document the strategy that Hussein’s regime was pursuing to counter and erode the UN disarmament measures.  This large task is made difficult by past mistakes:  Key sites were left unsecured and looters destroyed much evidence.  Tons of documents were collected haphazardly, and now need to be sorted and translated.  In short, there is much to be done and there is the strong potential that much will be revealed. 

See Duelfer’s article in the Washington Post (6 October 2003).

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THE US VS. FRANCE

Since last year, the French and the US have been at a loggerhead.  This is largely symbolized by the debate over Iraq.  However, it is much larger, for France sees itself as the leader of the new Europe and the US sees itself as the leader of the world.  France will not let the US feel it is the leader and is daily reminding the US that it is close by.  Tom Friedman has provocatively argued: “France is not just our annoying ally.  It is not just our jealous rival.  France is becoming our enemy.”   It appears as if France wants the US to fail in Iraq:  (1) Before the war, the French made it impossible for the UN Security Council to put a real ultimatum to Saddam that might have avoided a war; (2) during the war the French foreign minister refused to answer the question of whether he wanted Saddam or America to win in Iraq; and (3) today France demands some symbolic transfer of sovereignty to some kind of hastily thrown together provisional government.  Again listen to Friedman:  “France wants America to sink in a quagmire there in the crazy hope that a weakened US will pave the way for France to assume its ‘rightful’ place as America’s equal, if not superior, in shaping world affairs.”  How should we think about this?

• First, there is no coherent, legitimate Iraqi authority able to assume power in the near future, and trying to force one now would lead to a dangerous internal struggle and delay the construction of the democratic institutions so desperately needed in Iraq.  The French position on this symbolic transfer of power is sheer lunacy.  It makes no sense and is simply the cornerstone of the French “Operation America Must Fail” campaign.

• Second, the French policy is suicidal.  If the US is defeated in Iraq, then all the various radical Islamic factions will widen their war on the West, of which France is a critical part (see first perspective).  As Friedman argues, “To think that France, with its large Muslim minority, where radicals are already gaining strength, would not see its own social fabric affected by this is fanciful.”  The whole tone and direction of the Arab-Muslim world, which is right on Europe’s doorstep, will be affected by the outcome in Iraq.  France should be using its influence within the European Union to assemble an army of European troops and a multi-billion dollar reconstruction package.  It is in their interest to do so.  But then, what we have seen in the last year is that France rarely acts in its own interests.  When the US succeeds in its policy in Iraq, France will be on the outside looking in and who could blame future American leaders for keeping France on the outside.  They have a constructive role to play in Iraq, not as the sole leader of things but as a partner.  The Bush administration remains very leery of France and, in light of France’s behavior over the last year, they give President Bush no reason to change. 

As I have argued several times on this program, what happens in Iraq is critical to the future of the West.  Should we lose Iraq, the consequences for terrorism will be huge: as they did in Afghanistan in the 1980s, they will have defeated another superpower, this time the US.  It is time for the French to see what is at stake in Iraq.

See Friedman’s article in the New York Times (18 September 2003). 

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THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CHRISTIANITY AND SCIENCE

In an article in the October/November issue of The American Enterprise, Rodney Stark, professor of sociology at the University of Washington at Seattle, argues the Christianity was instrumental in bringing about the development of science.  Because Christians saw God as a rational being, they thought the natural world must have a “rational, lawful, stable structure, waiting (indeed, inviting) human comprehension.”   

Furthermore, as I argued in my book on church history, the Reformation challenged the authority of the Roman Catholic church, which had dogmatized as theology a particular scientific view of the world, namely that the earth was the center of the universe.  Further, the shift from the institutionalized church as a source of religious authority to the Bible played a crucial role in advancing the acceptance of new scientific ideas.  To study nature was to study God at work.  All of the early leaders of modern science (e.g., Galileo, Kepler, and Newton) believed that truth came from studying both God’s Word and God’s world.  Both are sources of truth and must complement one another.  This idea was a radical idea, but needs to be at the center of a wholistic education, even today.  For the Christian, truth is wholistic.  The Word of God becomes the grid through which all the disciplines of human knowledge are examined.  Science and faith are not enemies; they are friends in the pursuit of truth. 

See Eckman, Perspectives from Church History, pp. 59-63.

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